The coming 24/7 media blitz proving prez was right about Saddam

http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
Howard Dean initially reacted with dignity and grace to the news that Saddam
Hussein had been taken into custody. He alone among the Democratic
presidential contenders gave President Bush some credit for the capture.
But if Dean doesn't yet wish that the 4th Infantry Division soldiers who
captured Saddam had tossed a grenade down the spider hole first, he soon
will.

Michael Jackson, Scott Peterson and Kobe Bryant, step aside. Saddam's trial
will be the trial of the year, perhaps of the century, with a worldwide
audience of hundreds of millions. It will change the nature of news coverage
from Iraq, to the grave detriment of Dean and other antiwar Democrats.

The news media and the Democratic presidential contenders have been doing
their best to ignore the evidence of Saddam's crimes. It now will be very
difficult to do so.

The news coverage from Iraq has consisted almost exclusively of highlighting
the casualties of the day from this ambush or that suicide bombing. But
Saddam's trial will supersede that. It will be easy for television to cover,
impossible for television to ignore.

And the capture of Saddam means that there will be eventually - and may be
immediately - far fewer ambushes and suicide bombings for the media to
report.

Intelligence is additive. Already there have been a number of arrests based
on information obtained from Saddam in his initial interrogation, and from
documents captured with him.

If I were a former regime loyalist, I'd be worried sick about what Saddam
knew about me and my whereabouts, and what he may have committed to paper.
I'd be so busy trying to cover my tracks that I wouldn't have time to plan
any new attacks.

And if I were an FRL, and I had seen the meek and cowardly way in which
Saddam surrendered, my eagerness to risk my life in what is now obviously a
lost cause would substantially be diminished.

The most immediate effect of Saddam's capture will be a huge increase in the
number of Iraqis willing to come forward with information, now that they
know for sure Saddam will not be coming back to wreak vengeance upon them.

Saddam's capture also means that the tongues of his senior officials already
in custody will be loosened. They now have no hope of a Baathist
restoration, and a greater incentive to cut deals to preserve their own
lives. Expect some of the face cards in the deck of 55 to become witnesses
for the prosecution at Saddam's trial.

And what a show the trial will be, with Iraqi prosecutors eliciting from
Iraqi witnesses evidence of the enormity of the crimes Saddam committed in
23 years of murder, oppression and theft.

The trial is likely to begin in March or April, the worst possible time for
Democrats. April 7, the anniversary of the day Saddam's statue fell in
Fardous Square, would be a good symbolic date. And it probably will last for
months.

With Iraqi witnesses reminding the world of what a monster Saddam was,
Democrats will seem petty, small, and more than a little cruel if they
continue to argue the vicious dictator should have been left in power to
oppress his people.

Democrats don't need Iraqi help to appear petty and small. If Dean was
gracious and dignified in his response to the capture of Saddam, many of his
supporters were not.

"I'm crying here," wrote "Carrie" on the Dean for America weblog. "I feel
that now we don't have a chance in this election."

"If Bush will not bring our boys home, then they will have to die so that
Howard Dean can win," said "Johnny Smith."

"I think it is shameful that the ACLU has not commented on the obvious
mistreatment Hussein has suffered at the hands of the American military,"
said "Leslie in SF."

Rep. James McDermott (D-Wash), charged on a radio show in Seattle that the
Army had timed Saddam's capture to give Bush a political boost.

Democrats complain that Republicans accuse them of being unpatriotic. This
is untrue, and unnecessary. Democrats do a good job of demonstrating their
lack of patriotism all by themselves.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in Washington
and in the media consider "must reading." Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

JWR contributor Jack Kelly, a former Marine and Green Beret, was a
deputy assistant secretary of the Air Force in the Reagan
administration. Comment by clicking here.